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Police came too late: 911 caller is slain
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Is there anything more to say about owning a firearm for self defense?
Police came too late: 911 caller is slain
May 8, 2002
BY FRAN SPIELMAN, CARLOS SADOVI AND ABDON M. PALLASCH STAFF REPORTERS
The Chicago Police Department's Internal Affairs Division has launched an investigation to determine why a South Side woman who made three calls to 911 to report that her husband was violating an order of protection was murdered before police arrived on the scene.
A pair of police cars converged on the scene 17 minutes after the victim's first Friday night call to 911, but Ronyale White, 31, was dead on the bedroom floor with a gunshot wound in her head.
Whether a quicker response would have saved White's life is unknown. Even so, the question is why did officers take 17 minutes to arrive at her home in the 10600 block of South La Salle.
Was White's initial call--that her husband was violating the order of protection--given the "Priority 1A" status it deserved?
IAD opened a "complaint registered" in response to questions raised by the Chicago Sun-Times and by Leslie Landis, domestic violence liaison to Mayor Daley.
"Initially, the sequence of calls, when you look at it, appear to be within the guidelines, but it's questionable," police spokesman Pat Camden said.
White made three calls to 911 --at 11:40 p.m., 11:45 p.m. and at 11:50 p.m., prosecutors said.
Although police cars were reportedly dispatched to the scene after each of the three calls, none arrived at White's home until 11:57 p.m. That's when two cars arrived simultaneously and officers found White's body on the bedroom floor, said Larry Langford, spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Communications.
In the first call, White is heard saying her husband, Louis Drexel, 30, is outside her home and she has an order of protection against him.
Dispatchers then hear her saying, " 'He's inside the house,' " prosecutor LuAnn Rodi Snow said.
In the second call, White says Drexel left the house and was "punching holes in the tires of the Durango. He has a gun," Rodi Snow said. "He said she's going to die."
In the third and final call, operators hear a man's voice threatening death, then a loud noise, apparently a door being kicked in. Five seconds later, two shots are heard and the phone goes dead.
White had locked the door of her bedroom and activated a tape recorder, which captured much of the attack, including the gunshots. After the attack, Drexel put the gun in her hand in a failed attempt to make it appear to be a suicide, the prosecutor said.
Investigators said they think the gun was the same gun Drexel had reported stolen in early April.
After the shooting, Drexel went to his mother's Forest Park home. The mother called police, who arrived on the scene as Drexel was attempting suicide. The bullet grazed his right temple. Drexel was later hospitalized. He wore a blue hospital smock during a bond hearing Tuesday.
He was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bond.
The murder of a battered woman who made three frantic calls to 911 angered victims' advocates, including Landis.
"If that's how things transpired, it's a tragedy. The response should have been prompter. . . . Priority One calls should receive a response that's faster than 17 minutes," Landis said.
"We need to examine what we can do to prevent that kind of occurrence in the future. I'm asking them to investigate it."
Joyce Coffee, executive director of Family Rescue, a South Side nonprofit, said she was "saddened" by the police response, especially in light of recent changes that have bolstered police training on domestic violence and elevated emergency calls to the Priority One status that requires immediate dispatch.
Langford acknowledged that the 911 call-taker had the option of dispatching a police car while continuing to question the victim, but chose to interview White fully before radioing the first police car shortly after 11:43 p.m.
"The lady's demeanor was very calm and she was conversational. She didn't say anything in the call that indicated she was about to be * harmed. She said he got in with a key. There was no indication that he was kicking in a door. Because there was no weapon on the scene, that might have had something to do with it," he said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-emer08.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Police came too late: 911 caller is slain
May 8, 2002
BY FRAN SPIELMAN, CARLOS SADOVI AND ABDON M. PALLASCH STAFF REPORTERS
The Chicago Police Department's Internal Affairs Division has launched an investigation to determine why a South Side woman who made three calls to 911 to report that her husband was violating an order of protection was murdered before police arrived on the scene.
A pair of police cars converged on the scene 17 minutes after the victim's first Friday night call to 911, but Ronyale White, 31, was dead on the bedroom floor with a gunshot wound in her head.
Whether a quicker response would have saved White's life is unknown. Even so, the question is why did officers take 17 minutes to arrive at her home in the 10600 block of South La Salle.
Was White's initial call--that her husband was violating the order of protection--given the "Priority 1A" status it deserved?
IAD opened a "complaint registered" in response to questions raised by the Chicago Sun-Times and by Leslie Landis, domestic violence liaison to Mayor Daley.
"Initially, the sequence of calls, when you look at it, appear to be within the guidelines, but it's questionable," police spokesman Pat Camden said.
White made three calls to 911 --at 11:40 p.m., 11:45 p.m. and at 11:50 p.m., prosecutors said.
Although police cars were reportedly dispatched to the scene after each of the three calls, none arrived at White's home until 11:57 p.m. That's when two cars arrived simultaneously and officers found White's body on the bedroom floor, said Larry Langford, spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Communications.
In the first call, White is heard saying her husband, Louis Drexel, 30, is outside her home and she has an order of protection against him.
Dispatchers then hear her saying, " 'He's inside the house,' " prosecutor LuAnn Rodi Snow said.
In the second call, White says Drexel left the house and was "punching holes in the tires of the Durango. He has a gun," Rodi Snow said. "He said she's going to die."
In the third and final call, operators hear a man's voice threatening death, then a loud noise, apparently a door being kicked in. Five seconds later, two shots are heard and the phone goes dead.
White had locked the door of her bedroom and activated a tape recorder, which captured much of the attack, including the gunshots. After the attack, Drexel put the gun in her hand in a failed attempt to make it appear to be a suicide, the prosecutor said.
Investigators said they think the gun was the same gun Drexel had reported stolen in early April.
After the shooting, Drexel went to his mother's Forest Park home. The mother called police, who arrived on the scene as Drexel was attempting suicide. The bullet grazed his right temple. Drexel was later hospitalized. He wore a blue hospital smock during a bond hearing Tuesday.
He was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bond.
The murder of a battered woman who made three frantic calls to 911 angered victims' advocates, including Landis.
"If that's how things transpired, it's a tragedy. The response should have been prompter. . . . Priority One calls should receive a response that's faster than 17 minutes," Landis said.
"We need to examine what we can do to prevent that kind of occurrence in the future. I'm asking them to investigate it."
Joyce Coffee, executive director of Family Rescue, a South Side nonprofit, said she was "saddened" by the police response, especially in light of recent changes that have bolstered police training on domestic violence and elevated emergency calls to the Priority One status that requires immediate dispatch.
Langford acknowledged that the 911 call-taker had the option of dispatching a police car while continuing to question the victim, but chose to interview White fully before radioing the first police car shortly after 11:43 p.m.
"The lady's demeanor was very calm and she was conversational. She didn't say anything in the call that indicated she was about to be * harmed. She said he got in with a key. There was no indication that he was kicking in a door. Because there was no weapon on the scene, that might have had something to do with it," he said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-emer08.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
keep lots of extra uppers for your ar..you can change often enough to keep the thing from over heating...what ever caliber fits the moment..~Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~
http://travelor223.tripod.com
PC=BS
Three Precious Metals: Gold, silver and lead
Were I an LEO, I'd treat these calls like code blue runs. We really need a far more serious punishment for men who violate restraining orders or otherwise harrass "exes." Too many turn violent.
These guys lose all perspective; it's like a mental illness -- how big a man does it take to hit a "girl?" When did that start to seem like a manly thing to do? Wasn't that covered in kindergarten? So you can hurt girls, what does that prove exactly?
If I could attach one political issue to the list of current hot buttons, it would be to put an end to these man-stalking-ex crimes. I don't believe in the idea of a woman who "deserves" to be hurt, because I don't believe one person owns another, ever. I think my Mom even made the pastor take the word "obey" out of the vows. Clever thinking. But that should go without saying. In case there's any doubt, in the movie FALLING DOWN, Michael Douglas was playing a guy going nuts. He was the villain, not the poor victimized ex-husband. He was just a nut on a mission to break a restraining order, who happened to do some cool stuff to gangsters along the way.
- Life NRA Member
If dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Yes there are many violent spouses out there as this nut just proved but don't label al of the guys like him. Some women are very evil ******* and will get a PFA on their husband just to be mean when the guy never deserved it. Just like child support in this county, if by some act of God the man get's custody of the kids in this county they wil be lucky to get $20 a week in support from the woman, but now as 99% of the custody cases here, the woman gets full custody and up to 65% of his pay in support. Women have alot of perks and it is discrimination against us, they know how to play the game and the guy is always the loser. Not all Domestic violence cases are the fault of the man and not all PFAs are deserving.
Rugster
Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
Sometimes, arriving 17 seconds after the caller calls 911, not to mention 17 minutes, is too late. How long does it take to pull a trigger, stab with a knife, or beat with a blunt object?
Domestic calls are dangerous, but danger is sometimes an inherent part of the job. We always try to send two officers to a domestic disturbance, but that is not always possible.
I have also seen women, who unfounded protective orders against the man, charged with filing a false report. Most of the time protective orders are justified, but I have seen cases of vengeful women filing for a protective order prior to filing for divorce. Here, protective orders are usually not granted unless there is a documented case of family violence or a genuine threat of family violence.
On more than one occasion I've told potential victims to do what they have to do to protect themselves, then call us. We can't be everywhere all the time. People must have the right, and the tools, to protect themselves from harm.